Notebook Sales Outpace Desktop Sales 207
mikesd81 writes "Eweek reports that notebook sales have surpassed desktop sales for the first time in history. 'In the third quarter of 2008, notebook PC shipments rose almost 40 percent compared with the same period of 2007 to reach 38.6 million units. Conversely, desktop PC shipments declined by 1.3 percent for the same period to 38.5 million units. "Momentum has been building in the notebook market for some time, so it's not a complete surprise that shipments have surpassed those of desktops," said iSuppli principal analyst for computer platforms Matthew Wilkins. "However, this marks a major event in the PC market because it marks the start of the age of the notebook." ... The FBI's National Crime Information Center reported that the number of reported laptop thefts increased almost 48 percent over the last two years, to nearly 109,000 from 73,700.'"
That's good, but. . . (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:That's good, but. . . (Score:4, Informative)
Many parts in a laptop are user-replaceable/upradeable. The parts that matter, at least, such as the HDD and memory, for instance. Graphics cards and such often are not, however. PCMCIA was supposed to address this whole problem, but even that has its limitations.
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Re:That's good, but. . . (Score:5, Insightful)
The sad truth is that the oligopoly of notebook OEMs aren't interested in losing their repair and replacement profit.
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Just about everything except the motherboard, LCD, and case you can buy overseas with a bit of searching. LCDs & cases are best bought off Ebay as "broken laptops".
Can't really do much about the motherboard, cheaply, though. They tend to change everything with that.
Forced obsolescence (Score:2)
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It's not that hard to find ExpressCards for most purposes. I just bought an ExpressCard expansion sound card for my music rig (I perform with software synthesizers).
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Huh? You can get serial ports [newegg.com], firewire [newegg.com],eSATA [newegg.com],parallel [newegg.com],or a converter to PCMCIA [newegg.com]
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If you are shopping at "major computer stores", you are likely doing something wrong.
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Re:That's good, but. . . (Score:4, Interesting)
The ODMs (ASUS, Quanta, Compal) who manufacture the notebooks were quite interested. It could significantly reduce manufacturing costs.
Alas, the OEMs (Dell, HP, Gateway) who sell the notebooks wanted none of it. Their replacement parts have a very high profit margin.
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Now just to get some more standards. . .and user-replaceable parts.
Yeah. This. I finally retired (read "Drove a sword through it to keep me from trying to repair it again and wasting my time") my 7 year old Omnibook last winter.
I really thought I would not miss it, but I missed having portable computing a lot more than I thought I would.
I picked up a gorgeous (and amazingly affordable)Pavilion 6985SE late this summer, and it is quickly becoming my favorite machine ever.
If laptop tech keeps improving at this rate, its no wonder. The video is great, and the battry
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(read "Drove a sword through it to keep me from trying to repair it again and wasting my time")
There has to be an interesting story behind this. Or, at least, a good youtube video...
Re:That's good, but. . . (Score:5, Interesting)
(read "Drove a sword through it to keep me from trying to repair it again and wasting my time")
There has to be an interesting story behind this. Or, at least, a good youtube video...
The story is basically the fact that I knew that if I kept the thing around, I would keep working on it.
The unit would operate fine for about an hour or so, then random errors would occur, and finally it would become unusable. After I recovered all the data from the drives, I replaced every "decently educated user serviceable" part inside. Several re-image, re-assemblies, and frustrated screams later I discovered the burned out chassis fan.
The fan was embedded in the magnesium chassis of the machine, and is not replaceable without heroic effort and some extensive modifications.
Since there were many more pressing things to fix, I knew that I would have to make sure the machine could NOT be fixed, or I would keep trying to fix it every time I looked at it.
So I took all the hardware out, broke out my stage combat rapier, and put the damned thing out of my misery forever [flickr.com](p)
Sorry for the lack of video.
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You can get replacement parts like that from a company called NextTronics [nexttronics.com]. I've kept an old laptop alive for many years through replacing parts like the LCD backlight inverter, and the dual cooling fan assembly.
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Problem is that that fan on that laptop was literally embedded into the metal framework. Not screwed in, but part of the frame.
Not much I could do about that one.
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That sounds like the problem I had. I could only buy an entire heatsink plus two fans. There are companies who specialize in laptop fans, but they didn't have the exact model in stock (size, number of fan blades, voltage//current rating). So I just had to replace the entire unit.
Argh! (Score:2)
I still have an Omnibook 6000. I'd have snagged yours for parts!
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There's a joke about blade servers in there somewhere, but so many come to mind and I can't quite decide.
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Low resolution, and shitty video card.
Not my kind of laptop...
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Low resolution, and shitty video card.
Not my kind of laptop...
Well, everyone has their own needs.
Since I don't seem to be gaming much anymore, it suits me just fine.
1280x800 is more than enough for what I use it for, and I picked it up for $500 (It's still selling for around $850)
That performance, for that price.. No way I could beat it.
And, quite frankly, it has a better video card than my primary machine at home does. The only gripe at *all* I have had with it was my own unfamiliarity with 64 bit systems. And, well... Vista of course, but you can get i
Re:That's good, but. . . (Score:5, Interesting)
And, the lack of replaceable parts is one other reason why laptop sales are "higher" than desktop sales.
Although businesses most likely purchase pre-built systems that get counted in these sorts of surveys, there are many desktop sales that wouldn't get counted: any machine that is built from parts. No "whitebox" sales from local computer stores would get counted, and obviously people like me (who have purchased a pre-built desktop in 15 years) would also not be represented at all.
Laptops won't have this counting error, as there really aren't any options that allow someone to build their own.
Notebooks fail Ergonomics (Score:3, Insightful)
Notebooks have wretched ergonomics. People are asking for pain if they are going to spend all their computing time typing on a small, straight keyboard, clumsily pointing and clicking with a TouchPad or a TrackPoint, and looking downward at a small screen.
To make a notebook ergonomically humane, the user must also purchase a docking station and connect a GoldTouch keyboard (for example), a monitor, and a humane pointing device. And a multi-port USB hub. He or she has to spend more than what would have been
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Although I prefer desktops for work, if needed I just raise the notebook to the correct viewing height and use a USB keyboard with a Logitech Marble Mouse. I believe in bringing my own keyboard and mouse to work in any event, and keep spares handy.
For recliner surfing I use a strip of Velcro to secure my Thinkpad to a laptop cooler (avoids roasted yarbles, put it on the bottom of the notebook under the spacebar area, do NOT do both sides or it will suck to separate the notebook and cooler!) and loom the pow
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Wrong Decision (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Wrong Decision (Score:5, Insightful)
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Sitting here in my recliner typing this, I can certainly agree.
I think the main reason for laptops having taken off now is that they are now small and light enough to actually be used on laps, and with display resolutions high enough to do real work.
What I predict as one consequence of laptop sales skyrocketing is a refocus in the gaming industry. Most laptops won't be able to play the latest 3D-intensive games, and those that can are big and heavy, which aren't the models where sales now skyrockets. If 5
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Touchpads and clits work differently
What can I say to that. Hehe hehe too much Christmas spirit :-)
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Sitting here in my recliner typing this,
The heat from under the machine is cooking your testicles, making you sterile.
my old 8 lb luggable
That's not luggable. This [oldcomputers.net] is luggable!
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I had a vasectomy years ago, You Insensitive Clod!!!
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No, newer laptops are small enough that they don't cover the entire lap, and cool enough not to do any cooking. It will at most warm the outermost inches of the penis.
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I agree up to a certain point. I see it all the time: a laptop on a desktop with a mouse and docking station hard-wired to a printer. But the thing is that some of the users who do this also work "impromptu" nights and weekends sometimes from home. So it would be really convenient for them to have the necessities and the tools from work available to them.
Now the users who have the same set-up and yet the laptop sees almost no battery use, they are the ones who would be better off with just a desktop.
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Money isn't everything.
Desktops work really well for office workers. The form factor is inferior for pretty much every other kind of user.
Yes, I'm typing this from a recliner beside the Christmas tree.
Re:Wrong Decision (Score:4, Interesting)
Desktops have a much lower total cost of ownership
Really? Most laptops use a good $50-100/year less electricity than desktops, more if he desktop has a big screen. Spread that over three years, and you've got the cost of a cheap laptop, so unless your desktop costs nothing it's pretty hard to beat in terms of TCO. Now laptops are outselling desktops worldwide (they were in the US earlier in the year, and for Apple machines for about 3 years) the economies of scale that supported desktop parts are going to shift to laptops too.
So, what are you factoring in to your TCO calculations other than the machine and electricity?
Steve Jobs Quote. (Score:2, Interesting)
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PC: "What?"
Steve Jobs: "Your Netbooks. They'll have to wait outside. We don't want them here.
Re:Steve Jobs Quote. (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly. Apple charge a minimum of $600 for their pieces of junk.
Seriously, is there anyone here who really believes Macs are something more than generic PC hardware which is allowed to play use their DRM'd OS? It may come in a shiny white case, but that really is just about it.
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Even if Apple products were just as crappy as the cheaper competition, I'd still pay extra to get their "DRM'd" OS, because it's still a better over-all system for me. The moment some makes an open desktop OS that is as good as OS X, I may consider switching.
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My Macbook Pro is one of the most sturdy computers I have ever owned. White? No. However, it survived not one, not two, but 3 10 foot falls onto concrete. The case was beaten to hell. Looked as though id have to buy a new one - not so. After prying the twisted metal apart, I saw that every component in the thing was protected like a tank. There were individual aluminum housings and crumple zones all over. In fact, every part seemed fine.
So I took out a pair of pliers, a screwdriver, and putty knife and bent
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Look in shops (Score:2)
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I am pretty sure that you confuse the cause with the effect. I.e. 80% of the PCs on sale in shops are laptops these days because laptops sell better these days.
To run a successful business, you slash prices on two kinds of items: The items that don't sell at all, and the items that are "hot". The former out of necessity, and the latter because it will attract lots of customers. In cer
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When sales of laptops have only just overtaken desktops, yet the shelves are already 80% full with laptops, it's pretty clear who is driving the market - and it isn't the customers.
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Actually it is. And the market is proactive due to something called "market research". Both the factories and stores were given predictions that the sale of laptops would overtake the sale of desktops.
While market research isn't 100% accurate, it's accurate enough that the customers come back to the researchers for more predict
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I don't suppose it has anything to do with the fact that at least 50% of the PCs sold in shops are laptops these days.
There, fixed it for you.
Last Week... (Score:5, Interesting)
I decided to build a more up-to-date computer, for about the eighth time since 1989, when I got my first 8086 PC AT (used.) I priced the parts (mobo, case & psu, cpu, memory, hdd, optical drive) and added the cost of a new wide-screen LCD monitor -- and found I had about $500 worth of parts -- about the same price as a new notebook with similar specs (well, the hdd would be smaller, but I don't really need another terabyte of storage.)
The prices on desktops at Fry's the night before Christmas eve were higher than desktops when a monitor was added. Why would I buy (or build) a bigger, heavier, noisier machine with similar performance and price?
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8086 PC AT
Thank you for playing. The AT was a '286 class machine. There were a few XT class 8086 machines, but most of them were 8088s.
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I believe you're right about IBM's nomenclature, but as I was *building* machines or upgrading, the case size was "AT". The original box I bought was, indeed, an IBM PC II (8086) 8Mhz. IIRC. I upgraded it to a 386sx then a 486 from Cyrix/IBM before ditching the case as its form factor was enormous (you may remember them from museums...) and wouldn't mount a 3 1/2" drive without an adapter.
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Your experience has been the complete opposite of mine. After my laptop died I looked into the market and did the math, which lead me to the conclusion that a 15'' laptop being sold for 900 euros would ended up with the same specs of a 190 euro desktop. I could add to that the 160 euros for a brand new 19'' monitor and voilÃ: the desktop would end up costing nearly half as the equivalent laptop. The choice was obvious.
But that's not all. My previous laptop, which costed me 1200 euros, died due to a bur
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Just FYI, cost is one of those fun monosyllabic english words which is irregular. It should be "which cost me 1200 euros..."
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Why would I buy (or build) a bigger, heavier, noisier machine with similar performance and price?
Because I've never seen any indication that you can get the same quality per dollar from a laptop. There very well might be a laptop with the same specs as the $750 desktop I just built (although you don't see two many with 6GB of RAM or a PCI-E graphics card or dual SATA-300 hard drives), but I guarantee it'd cost a couple thousand dollars.
It's trite, but true. Size, price, quality: pick two.
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Why would I buy (or build) a bigger, heavier, noisier machine with similar performance and price?
Ease of repairs and upgrades? My GFs laptop had its mobo die, repairs would have cost the same as a new laptop, whereas if it was a PC, this could be fixed for around 100$ or less.
If this laptops keyboard died, then I'm out around 50% the price of a new laptop, instead of $9.
The LCD? Your pretty much screwed.
Also, if you want to upgrade the crappy video card in most laptops, to actually play games made after 1
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I might have agreed with you a couple of years ago, but I bought on Craigslist an old Dell laptop from 2003 (C610) which has been 100% trouble free with respect to hardware (it has XP installed though I run Puppy Linux on it from the optical drive most of the time).
So has my latest desktop, from 2004, a box with an ABit mobo and Sempron processor. It, too, has been without glitches; it runs Mepis Linux and is on 24/7/365 serving files to the Dell.
Perhaps my experience with a well-used Dell (the letter marki
Vista (Score:3, Insightful)
If we define notebooks as small laptops with processors in the Atom class, then Microsoft has a very big problem with there with Vista and even with XP I would say. It is not only the fact that Vista is too slow in that hardware. It is also that it gets slower with use. The registry gets full of garbage, and all kinds of crapware stick to windows systems. Given time this would bring to its knees any computer in that hardware class.
And for those that say that next year Moore's law will fix it, I don't think this would be fixed in a year or two. Maybe three, maybe more. This is a very long time in this industry.
I am curious about what this will mean for Linux on the desktop as there is also the cost issue. We have a clearly inferior (in that hardware) operating system that costs money against a free and Free operating system.
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I am curious about what this will mean for Linux on the desktop as there is also the cost issue. We have a clearly inferior (in that hardware) operating system that costs money against a free and Free operating system.
Linux is free only if you already knew about it before you bought your computer. Otherwise, you run into unsupported or poorly supported hardware.
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If you bought it preinstalled (the case for netbooks) you get fully supported hardware.
If stores carry only the Windows version (Score:2)
If you bought it preinstalled (the case for netbooks) you get fully supported hardware.
True, I've seen Eee PCs with Xandros in Toys R Us and Target stores in Fort Wayne, Indiana, in the past month. But a lot of Slashdot users have posted comments complaining that stores in other areas that sell netbooks carry only the Windows XP version, not the Linux version. And besides, sometimes I want to buy something a bit bigger than an Eee PC or Aspire One if I'm going to use it as a desktop replacement; those universally come with Windows unless I buy either a Mac or, say, an Inspiron notebook from d
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Not necessarily. There are Linux laptops sold out there where certain hardware functionality isn't supported. Fingerprint readers, for example. Or WAN cards. Or certain special keys.
This is because so far, there are almost no laptops that were designed for Linux. They are really Windows machines that run Linux instead.
Sun had a nice Sparc-driven laptop with Solaris on it, but unfortunately so few people knew about it
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Thank you. I wish more people would see this.
Linux is only free if your time isn't money.
Honestly, I would rather spend a couple of hundred bucks and use Windows on an OEM machine with standard hardware than jump through hoops to get Linux running.
When I was younger (and poorer, with more time), I enjoyed playing around with Linux. But as I've grown older, my time is money and I have much better things to do with my time than trying to spend inordinate amounts of time getting my computer to run.
Inferior and
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I have.
And Microsoft doesn't have an Excel 2007 version on Ubuntu, unfortunately. Until such day, not worth it in my book.
Wine is not an emulator (Score:2)
And Microsoft doesn't have an Excel 2007 version on Ubuntu, unfortunately.
Quit whining and start WINEing. Excel 2007 Viewer is one of the fully supported apps, and Excel 2007 works too [wine-reviews.net].
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And please. Getting anything up and running on Linux has never been possible in 20 minutes. Ubuntu included.
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Different priorities.
To me, all I need to do is use office, surf the web and listen to music. On occasion, transfer stuff from my iPod or digital camera.
I buy a notebook from the store with Windows pre-installed (where the wireless adapter, and everything else, works out of the box); I buy and install Office, download a couple of applications and all my needs are met.
Ideally, I'd like to spend as little time as possible setting things up.
Now, personally, Linux (and Office on Linux) is nowhere ready enough f
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Office, baby. Office.
It's not the platform, but the applications on the platform.
For instance, for those of us who have to use spreadsheets, Excel is ages ahead of any competition. The shortcuts, documentation, existing scripts, backwards compatibility etc. also play a big role.
And on that same scale, Office 2007 in general is way superior. It is not just the features - it is also *good* technical support and supporting documentation for the end user.
By that same note, I see OS X coming up as an alternative
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If we define notebooks as small laptops with processors in the Atom class
...then we're confusing "notebooks" and "netbooks". The former are what used to be called "laptops" before the litigious folks realized they could fry your balls, and the latter are overgrown PDAs that still don't have enough pixels to do anything useful with.
Re:Vista (Score:4, Informative)
overgrown PDAs that still don't have enough pixels to do anything useful with.
It's painfully obvious that you're talking out of your arse and you don't have a netbook.
For what it's worth, I use SolidWorks 2008 on my EeePC 901 professionally. Sure the screen isn't as nice as a big desktop thing, but it's perfectly usable.
Re:Vista (Score:4, Informative)
Microsoft has one very big problem: they totally missed the low-power PC revolution. They have sunk insane amounts of money into their new OS that, as tradition has it, is slower and demands better hardware than the previous one, and released it when (1) XP had just started to mature enough for people to consider it good enough and (2) when the best selling PCs can't run it.
What they should do now is split OS lines, i.e. support XP for small PCs, and Vista for big machines, instead of trying to kill off XP. But they'll never do that, they're much too stubborn.
As for growing XP registry and general mess on the system, that's easy:
- Disable automatic Windows update. Yes, get a decent AV, a decent non-Microsoft browser, a decent non-Microsoft firewall, behave rationally when you browse the web and you'll be just fine. Each new update of Windows seem to be worse than the previous one anyway; one could almost believe they're trying to make XP worse than Vista for some reason I can't fathom. [/sarcasm]
- Disable prefetching for anything but boot programs. You'll recover many MANY megabytes of disk space, and you'll boot a ton faster.
- Run things like ccleaner regularly
- If you're really short of disk space, consider nLite
(This post made on a EeePC 901 w/ XP)
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Well, I agree with all you say, but I think you have forgotten that netbooks are bought by non technical people that just wants them to work out of the box and tend not to have time to maintain them.
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I'm a relatively technical person, and I got an AAO with XP, and replaced that with Ubuntu, so I'm getting a kick out of your reply.
I bought my netbook because my workplace supplies me with a huge screen desktop on which I spend most of my time, so for when I'm not at work or especially away from home, I needed something bigger than a blackberry, but still very portable.
It's also awesome when I go out in the field for astronomy/astrophotography purposes, since Stellarium runs very well on it.
And since my tr
The Walmart Reality Check (Score:2)
Ten of the fifteen mini-laptops sold through Walmart.com run XP on the Atom.
The XP ATOM netbook at $350 includes a 9" screen, a 120 GB HDD and 1 GB RAM.
The Ubuntu Dell with 512 MB RAM and 4 GB RAM at $350 is at least interesting. But I am
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I hope you meant "netbook."
Otherwise, if we define notebooks as Powerbooks, Microsoft has a very big problem with all their operating systems.
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People have been saying that Moore's law will fix Window's slowness for years, but I'll believe it when it stops being a problem.
And Microsoft seems to be winning on the Netbook sector as well. I don't think there are any Netbooks out there which aren't at least sold with Windows as an option. Although Linux usually works much better, most people are stupid and only use Windows.
Not only that, their presence is actively harming the market. They have maximum specs to qualify for their Ultra-Low-Cost-PC versio
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This pretty much sums up the reasons why the geek and Linux fare poorly in the mass consumer market - with the exception of the video game console or set-top box which keeps its inner geek safely out of sight.
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If we define notebooks as small laptops with processors in the Atom class,
And if we define Fords as Elephants, the level of elephant crap in this country must be incredible!
Microsoft has a very big problem with there with Vista and even with XP I would say.
Nothing new here; MS has acknowledged this, and promised to address it in Windows 7. The Netbook market took them (and many, many other people) completely by surprise.
It is not only the fact that Vista is too slow in that hardware. It is also that it gets
Docking Station (Score:2)
Schönes Weihnachten
I wonder how they count them (Score:2, Interesting)
I don't buy "a desktop", but I buy parts, often from different merchants. I doubt a user-assembled desktop counts for these numbers since it's not assembled by a big name OEM. For laptops, notebooks, etc., you have to buy the package deal and buy a machine with a name on it, so buying one would surely be counted as a notebook purchase. Since my desktop wasn't purchased as a whole machine, I wonder if it was counted.
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Death of PC Gaming (Score:2)
I think this has a lot to do with the purported death of PC gaming stories that keep coming up, like this one from yesterday:
http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/12/24/032242 [slashdot.org]
Sure, notebooks can play PC games, but it's a reduced experience, both in terms of comfort and performance.
I'm one of the people that switched over from desktop to notebook only about 6 years ago now. Once I switched over I gradually just stopped playing PC games; they ran like shit and it was cramped. A while after that, I dec
Maybe that's because portable devices wear faster (Score:3, Interesting)
Maybe that's because portable devices are used up faster. They get lost, damaged, stolen, and the batteries die. Desktops have none of those problems.
I guess it's the "Netbook" phenomenon.. (Score:2)
I bought one, a Eee PC 904HD and it's "desktop" counterpart the B202.
The small size and quiet/low power/cost operation sold me.
I don't want to suggest that one "netbook" is better than another, that's somebody Else's job.
To whom and for what purpose? (Score:2)
Is this "study" excluding corporate buys? What about servers which are sold as desktop configurations? I did buy a notebook this year (for the first time) but I can balance that against 5 others who bought desktops and the ungodly number of desktops my company buys per month from DELL.
For many there is no reason to have a desktop (Score:2)
I have stopped using desktops a while ago for one simple reason: I do enough stuff on a computer that it is worth brining it with me everywhere I go. E-mail, digital photography, deveopment, web browsing -- a modern laptop is capable of doing all of this. You can buy a pre-build Linux laptop from Dell for less than a grand. What is the reason for having a desktop again? Of course, if you're a fucking haxor who wants RAID 1+0, 15K RPM SAS drives and the rest of the stuff, be my guest. For the rest of us a
Since U still can't build notebooks from scratch (Score:2)
obviously sales are up. But more importantly, you're buying more of the more expensive alternative & if you're still buying the cheap alternative, you clearly need to get your act together.
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Dude your penis must be massive!!!
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Over here in the part of the world where we don't use computers as a measure of our masculinity, we are happy being able to sit in the park during the summer and work there, rather than inside, when the weather is nice. We like having our palmtops that let us write finish off an article in the pub while we wait for friends to arrive, or in a coffee shop looking out over the sea. And we like our computers being a small fraction of our electricity bills again.
But, if you feel your sexuality threatened by l
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Re:Girls and Gays (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm a long time gentoo user and even I don't see the need to upgrade to a quad core, despite having to compile stuff all the time. It could go faster, but right now I think it's fast enough and so not worth the money to upgrade the mobo+RAM+CPU. I even do a bit of video compression and run some virtual machines. You know what? I'm still on a *single* core cpu! OMG I'm so un-l33t or whatever...
And 9TB of drive space? What are you storing anyway? I have quite few video and music and I'm still below 2TB, backups included.
I think you just made those up just to prove a point, dude. Laptops are just fine, save for the small screen and even then you can always hook your laptop to another one when at home.
And please stop using the term gay in a derogative way, it's just so very immature.
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Real geeks use 1920x1200 displays to make 20 xterm screens visible simultaneously.
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Everyone and everything is fair game for a harmless laugh. When you label certain things (aka homosexuality) as being off limits to some light humor you piss people off and make life a little less worth living. Seriously, what harm comes from poking some fun at the fact that gay guys like Macs? SERIOUSLY!
Are redneck trailerpark jokes off limits too? Is REDNECKPHOBIA something that must be stamped out with nazi-like zeal as well? Somehow I think you wouldn't take the same stand for other groups.
Get ove
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Re:Desktops....The real sign of a true Geek. (Score:5, Interesting)
The badge of a true geek is what you do with your computer, not what kind of computer it is. Adam Dunkels, who wrote a multitasking operating system for the C64 is more of a geek than any of us who write code for multicore processors.
The idea of taking your storage with you is remarkably quaint though, I like it. I'm tempted to bookmark this post and refer you to it in ten years.